What inspires us to stand up for our principles? For Bruce McArthur, the inspiration was a frog.
“I was up on the bluffs looking for a spotted owl, busy looking up until I happened to look down. There at my feet was a red-legged frog.”
It was 2003 and Bruce was exploring the area for the Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs. Their mission was to convince the provincial government to choose an alternative highway route to Whistler for the 2010 Olympics, proposing a tunnel option rather than a route through the environmentally fragile bluffs and adjacent Larson Creek wetlands.
The Northern red-legged frog, which was on the endangered species blue list (particularly sensitive to human activity) inspired Bruce to go a step further. He became a familiar presence at public gatherings and in West Vancouver’s council chambers as an environmental advocate dressed as a red-legged frog.
“We grew up in nature out here in the Bay. There were frogs in the ditches along Royal Avenue. I can still hear them croaking.”
West Vancouver was like another place, he says. “We went to school there but that was about it. The people of Horseshoe Bay and the water and the mountains gave me everything I needed.”
In 1942, Arthur and Betty McArthur moved from Alberta to Horseshoe Bay with a then five-year-old Bruce. Arthur, known by all as Slim, was an electrician in the shipyards during the Second World War and Betty, like her friends, worked in shops in the neighbourhood. Bruce was an only child until his three siblings came along and he became the family babysitter.
At just over six feet seven inches tall, Slim McArthur was a presence in the close-knit community at the western end of Marine Drive. He was elected head of the Horseshoe Bay Community Association and served on West Vancouver municipal council in 1955 and 1956.
Bruce’s first paid job was washing dishes in the kitchen of the Horseshoe Bay Hotel. He stood on a box because, at seven years old, he wasn’t tall enough to reach the sink.
“I was always a worker. All of us boys were because we had no money. We found ways to earn money.”
One of those ways was to hire out to ferry passengers, carrying luggage from the ferry dock to the bus stop on the other side of the bay, earning from 10 to 25 cents per suitcase. They graduated to working for the ferries as “ramp rats” and ticket agents.
There was always time for them to catch a fish off the docks or roam the hills above Horseshoe Bay, their wilderness backyard. Every winter, Bruce and his father hiked into the forest to bring back the family Christmas tree.
Bruce liked being in the woods and on the water, but he wanted to be an electrician like his father. And like Slim, Bruce worked all over the province and further afield as a project manager for Dillingham Construction, working in Iran and Colombia.
Like Slim, Bruce headed the Horseshoe Bay Community Association.
As chairman of the Western Residents’ Association, he helped found the Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs. The cause brought the already tight community closer together. The highway did eventually go through the area but the wetlands were preserved, ensuring that frogs and other species that inhabit the rare ecosystem have a home.
Bruce’s participation in local environmental organizations – Navvy Jack Nature House, West Vancouver Streamkeeper Society, Old Growth Conservancy Society, North Shore Wetland Partners – is more than an excuse to wear the red-legged, tailed or Pacific chorus frog costumers (he has a Salmon one too) that he and his mates use when promoting environmental causes.
“We hope they will inspire others or at least start a conversation,” he says.
Looking back, Bruce reflects, “I wanted to give back after working in industrial construction my whole life, and to follow in my dad’s footsteps.”
At six foot three, Bruce isn’t quite as tall as his father was but, he says, “I looked up to him all my life. That’s a bit of a joke, I know, but he really was my inspiration.”
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or e-mail her at [email protected].
